This week she wrote a piece for Huffington Post that is a beautiful view into her relationship with her daughter. It also is a tutorial on how to get over yourself.

I’m going through a rough patch right now, and I get impatient that things are moving in my direction as fast as I think they should. I have been working since I was 12 years old, and being idle isn’t something I deal with very well. I can keep busy, but then I feel guilty, because I think I should be constantly looking for a job. I was whining to my wife about it.

In it, she tells of a conversation she had with her daughter about her illness:

I told her that yes, I was scared. I explained that my fear usually comes from the unknown, in this case just how I will respond to treatments. I told her it was okay to be scared. That it’s normal. That sometimes that fear makes you brave enough to do things you don’t think you can otherwise do.

I told her that I understood that sickness could be scary, that I didn’t want her to be afraid of me as I got sicker someday. “I would never be afraid of you, Mom. I’m only afraid of cancer,” she said. My heart squeezed and thrashed and the tears flowed.